Net Neutrality
The FCC is fixing what ain’t broke. It took over the internet with a 3-2 ruling. President Obama had pressured the independent agency to embrace “Net Neutrality“. The FCC will rule the world wide web as a 1930’s era public utility.
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That’s not how net neutrality works.
Maybe the FCC should regulate the auto industry. If I want a fast car, like a Vette, it should cost the same as a ’35 Model T. Sounds good to me but I wonder how GM would react? I’m thinking that we would never see another Vette. We are doomed.
1.) The Internet is not a manufactured commodity in the sense that a car is.
2.) The Model T was produced from 1908 to 1927. There is no such thing as a “’35 Model T.”
3.) A Model T in road-worthy condition from ANY year is a collector’s item and is worth more than almost any Corvette except perhaps a mint-condition model that was used in a highly popular movie or TV show.
The commenter does not understand how net neutrality, automobile manufacturing or antiques markets work.
You have absolutely no idea what Net Neutrality is or how it works, do you?
Since you have no idea how the Internet works or anything about net neutrality, I’ll leave you with specific bullet points.
What your ISP wants(no net neutrality):
1) Customer pays for for fast internet (i.e. 50Mb)
2) Corporations pay for fast internet (i.e. 1 Gb)
3) Your ISP wants to open a toll road forcing anyone who won’t pay the toll to take the slow lane.
What net neutrality does:
1) 1) Customer pays for for fast internet (i.e. 50Mb)
2) Corporations pay for fast internet (i.e. 1 Gb)
Your cartoon depicts the first scenario, the scenario without net neutrality.
I’m a person who works on internet technologies in silicon valley. I urge you do some research of your own. Try googling verizon throttling netflix. Even though customers are paying $100/mo for fast internet, Verizon was throttling Netflix because they wanted to extort them for more money instead of providing bandwidth to consumer requests(netflix).
Actually, your comment makes some sense and therefore I agree with it – somewhat. An ISP can only force someone to pay a toll if there’s not another ISP offering a cheaper toll or better service. When the gov steps in and runs the internet like ma bell in the 1930s some people end up subsidizing other people. (not that I would compare this to Obamacare). When you don’t pay the real price of a service you get shortages and the government gets a little heavy handed. Hard to believe.
Sure, many places users will switch to a better, competing ISP if, say, their first choice starts throttling Netflix to make them pay road tolls. Where I live, I would do so. However, I hear the US broadband market is in many locations more of a duopoly or even monopoly. When the competitive pressure decreases, the incentives for being well behaved and not create toll booths become less strong too.
I also hear that many suspect part of the reason for this is certain local laws and rights that are influenced by the big ISPs and makes it harder to enter the market.
And that adds up to a market that is currently failing because of government regulations brought about by powerful ISP interests. And then, it seems to be, many US netizens started raising their voices about this and actually gave the FCC sufficient momentum to make a decision few would have expected half a year ago: a couple of touches of pro-consumer regulations to undo or offset some of the effects or potential harms of the pro-monopolist-biz regulations we’re seeing. (Note especially that we were already seeing real-life examples of such harm – content based throttling to create artificial slow lanes and toll booths, double-charging for bandwith – of course all costs are eventually born by the consumer..).
You fear the FCC will extend its regulation in more and more detail. I’m not worried at all – why? Because US internet users are paying attention. If they FCC does something they will perceive as bad, it will be flooded with comments again.. 🙂
Perhaps you Americans will eventually find an equilibrium between pro-consumer and pro-biz regulation. Perhaps the competitive marked with improve. Likely we’ll look back and this debate and think it was a tempest of hot air in a teacup. Maybe even you yourself will look back in 10 years and think the “hacked” cartoons were closer to reality than your younger self?
The problem here is broadband access is based on an expensive network infrastructure that was built with the help of government subsidies handed over to a handful of corporations that then leverage the ownership of that network to keep competition to a minimum. The subsidization that you abhor already occurred long ago and the competition you admit is necessary will only occur if the government enacts legislation to enable it. It’s funny you talk about previous telco legislation as if it were a bad thing as this was exactly the same situation then as it is now with many of the same bad actors that were responsible then operating in the same anti-competitive ways to day as they were then. History repeats when you fail to learn.
That is not remotely true. When the ISPs charge content providers (like you) the consumers bill does not go up directly, because the ISPs are not charging the customers directly. Instead they are charging the content providers (like you) and they are in turn passing that cost onto us. It is a hidden cost, therefore people will not change ISPs because they do not see the cost of their other services going up as an effect of the ISPs tolls.
In addition you still end up subsidizing others, because if my ISP charges the content providers the content providers (like you) are not just going to increase cost for those consumes on the ISPs charging them. They are going to raise the price across the board, so those who do not use the ISPs charging content providers, like you, will be subsidizing those that do use those ISPs
Dear Chip, this is the exact opposite of what Net Neutrality does.
You’re either completely cluseless or fucking retarded.
Horst, before I became a fucking retard, I learned in econ 101 that corporations pay for nothing – we do. If we don’t they go out of business. And they have been showing favorable treatment for their preferred customer since the beginning of time.
The main problem with that defense is that the internet isn’t something that any specific individual owns. We’re not paying for access to THEIR internet, we’re just paying access to the internet. It’s global, they’re not producers, and we’re not consumers of their content, we’re merely paying a toll to gain access to an already existing network.
Lemme put it to you this way.
Let’s say your website becomes incredibly popular, and you start getting like, a million hits a day, or more.
So your consumer base starts to put extra demands on your content servers, due to the increased traffic, and you upgrade your hardware. Things are running beautifully on your end… yet your consumers are still reporting slowdowns, bad loads, and all kinds of problems, but the thing is, your tech is good, you’ve got a top notch internet gateway, yet still, access to your service is being throttled and choked.
Two weeks later you get a notice from comcast/verizon/whoever provides your access to the net, saying “Hey, we noticed that you’ve been receiving a lot of traffic. Pay us more per month, and we’ll prioritize traffic to your content, so your users don’t lag as much.”
Incensed, you say no, because you know that it’s the ISP causing those problems in the first place.
It’s a classic squeeze maneuver. Manufacture a problem, and then be the one with the solution to the problem, while making money off of it was well.
So you tell them to fuck right the fuck off, and suddenly people are reporting that they simply can’t connect to you at all. Random outages, service interruptions.
And then, you see, advertised. “With Comcast’s new premium content package, for an extra five dollars per month, you can get faster connection speeds to your favorite content creators, like Bokbuster, Youtube, Tumblr, Imgur, 4chan, whatever! Just give us a bit more per month and you’ll have uninterrupted access to these guys, it’s great!”
All net neutrality does is stop ISP’s from pulling that nonsense. Your comic, is literally, backwards.
The television should say “When your ISP says it will.”
Title 2 reclassification simply means that your ISP isn’t allowed to interfere in your service.
Except that’s not EXACTLY what is going on even if it is what people think is what is going on. There are basically two ways content providers traffic can get to an ISP’s end users: 1. Through an edge provider’s network or 2. through a paid direct connection to the ISP (like Netflix now has). Within option 1. There are two different ways traffic can flow to the ISPs base on the connection agreement made for the traffic through the edge provider. These are called peering and transport. Peering agreements allow traffic to reach the end users on the ISPs network for free as the end user has already paid for the traffic. Although transport agreements can be used to reach end users, they really are meant to allow traffic to pass through the network to end users on other networks and help with making routing faster and more reliable and because its typically not paid for by the end user of the ISP, it is then paid for by the edge provider that in turn bills which passes the cost on back to the content provider. The traffic for each of these types of connections is separated by passing through different switches on to the ISP’s network. Netflix traffic originally routed through the switches that handle peering agreements. What happened was the ISPs purposely refused to upgrade the switches that handle peering traffic (even when Netflix offered to pay for the upgrades) to try to force the traffic onto the transport switches so that they could get paid twice for it – once by the end users and again by the providers. The direct connection agreement they ended up getting from Netflix has the same result – getting paid twice for the same traffic. This is why they can get away with denying that they are throttling some traffic but not others through the same connection. It doesn’t work the way most people think it works. Title II will allow the FCC to mandate standards for peering connections. That is what this is about.
The cartoonist doesn’t know how net neutrality works.
Really, you people should stop hacking my cartoons to make a point. It’s not “fair use”. It’s illegal. Think the FCC will help me out here? You’re destroying my intellectual property and inserting your own stupid message. Are you Chinese? Come up with something on your own.
The cartoonist doesn’t know how net neutrality works.
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net_neutrality
So we’ve established that the cartoonist doesn’t know how net neutrality works and also doesn’t know how fair use works. That then begs the question…
What else doesn’t works in ways the cartoonist doesn’t know?
As a lawyer and as the consulting editor on NPR’s Double Take Toons, while I disagree with Chip Bok’s view of Net Neutrality, but I do support him on his understanding of fair use. His statement “come up with something on your own,” is what resonates with me the most.
Chip has the right to have the words he speaks and the images he draws to be presented as he intended them. In fact, he has an internationally recognized legal and moral right to protect the integrity of his work. Replacing his words with someone else’s isn’t just criticism, it supplants and therefore silences his speech. And because of the way the internet works, it is quite possible that some might mistake the parody of his work, as his work.
If you want to parody them, then at least take as much time and skill as he did. Cutting and pasting your own words on top of his, is not clever or creative. It used to be done with crayons and lots of exclamation points – every cartoonist I know has stacks of them. One proudly exhibited a photo of a re-captioned cartoon done in excrement, which took at least some original output.
Where in the law exactly is the effort required quantified to qualify as fair use?
The lawyer doesn’t know how 17 USC 107 works.
Good one.
As an intellectual freedom and copyright librarian who has written on both subjects for the American Library Association, I disagree with your understanding of fair use.
> His statement “come up with something on your own,” is what resonates with me the most.
It’s also legally irrelevant. If you have case law to the contrary, I’d like to see it.
> Chip has the right to have the words he speaks and the images he draws to be presented as he intended them. In fact, he has an internationally recognized legal and moral right to protect the integrity of his work.
I assume you’re referring to the so-called “moral rights” incorporated in § 106A. That section begins, “Subject to section 107 […]”. Thus, the extent of those rights is explicitly subject to the limits set by fair use. The rights do not exist where fair use applies, so you cannot argue that they overcome it.
> Replacing his words with someone else’s isn’t just criticism, it supplants and therefore silences his speech.
This misunderstands either the nature of censorship or the act occurring here. No-one is taking down or editing Bok’s work where he or a licensee has chosen to publish it, nor are they creating law or policy that restricts his ability to publish it in the future. The only way in which his ability to publish it is jeopardized is where the criticism has convinced potential licensees that Bok’s original work is incorrect on the issue. That is not a negative outcome from either a legal or a public policy perspective; lost sales due to criticism and parody are not cognizable harms in a fair use analysis, and the marketplace of ideas is an integral part of democracy.
> And because of the way the internet works, it is quite possible that some might mistake the parody of his work, as his work.
That’s most relevant in a trademark claim. I would be interested to see how such a claim went, but it’s got nothing to do with 17 U.S.C. § 107. You could also make the agument in a defamation/libel/publicity rights context, none of which have anything to do with fair use either, but I’d bet you dollars to donuts that you’d lose. Finally, you might argue for some weight under the fourth prong of a fair use analysis, but unless you bring evidence of actual lost licensing fees as a result of consumer confusion, the harm would be dismissed as entirely speculative. (And I’m not 100% sure that providing such evidence wouldn’t just result in a benchslap for copyright misuse, given that you’d be attempting to substitute copyright for a trademark harm.)
> If you want to parody them, then at least take as much time and skill as he did. Cutting and pasting your own words on top of his, is not clever or creative. It used to be done with crayons and lots of exclamation points – every cartoonist I know has stacks of them. One proudly exhibited a photo of a re-captioned cartoon done in excrement, which took at least some original output.
Cute, but legally irrelevant. In addition to the fact that there is no “sweat of the brow” doctrine in U.S. copyright law, you are at best making a case for there being no copyrightability in the altered work. I am not aware of any case law suggesting that insufficiently original or effortful expression is beneath the notice of the first amendment or fair use. (Feel free to cite contrary court opinons if you have any.) On the contrary, fair use analysis of parody generally accepts that majority or heart of the work MUST be taken for effective parody, allowing the third prong to be weighed in favor of fair use even in cases where the entirety of a work is used!
Finally, belittling the value of the expression of others in this particular manner just makes you look petty and defensive, and that really doesn’t help your case. (And if you were arguing it in court, it just might prejudice the court against your client.)
This cartoonist doesn’t know how racism works.
Chinese? Really?
Ah the race card. Must mean I’ve won the argument.
No, it just means you think that calling someone an ethnic group is insulting them, which means you think that that ethnic group is lesser somehow. Congrats, that’s being a bigot.
You can’t say someone is playing “the race card” when you write something racist. Something really obviously, blatantly racist like that.
What dark thoughts do you have about Chinese ethnicity that have a negative connotation?
China is frequently accused of stealing intellectual property and that was my allusion to the person who appropriated my cartoon.
But you already knew that. Are you also one of those who tries to block all criticism of Obama as racist?
And that is why it was racist. You made a statement about a persons potential ethnicity based on a generalized thought about that ethnicity. That is the definition of racism as applied to an ethnic group.
Actually, as an IP attorney who deals a lot with Fair Use, I think it’s is a pretty strong case of Fair Use. Most of the fair use factors support it. The use is transformative and serves to critique and/or comment on the original work. DMCA takedown notices are abused quite a bit to take down fair uses of intellectual property, and I think this is one of those occasions.
I’m all for parody and mockery but you can’t change the content of my actual work leaving my name and copyright on it as if it were still my original work.
Not even an idiot in a hurry would be confused into thinking the cartoonist is trumpeting his own ignorance.
Oh, wait…
The cartoonist doesn’t know how net neutrality, OR fair use works.
The only hack here is you.
Parody allows this under the Fair Use act. =) Also you being older doesn’t mean wiser. After all its the older people who supplied the terrorists we fight today. =3
The fact that you’ve suggested that people “hacked” your cartoon (copy and paste is not a hack) and “destroyed” your intellectual property in relation to someone altering the words on your cartoon and reposting it somewhere else (which last time I checked doesn’t destroy your original post) demonstrates a lack of understanding of how the internet actually works.
Well. Let’s conduct a fair use assessment as laid out more than 170 years of court decisions (Folsom v. Marsh was in 1841) and the actual copyright statute (17 U.S. Code § 107), shall we?
First prong: Purpose and character: The use is for the statutory purposes of criticism and comment and appears to be nonprofit in nature. Additionally, the use is arguably transformative. Even leaving off the nonprofit and transformative arguments, the first prong would strongly favor fair use.
Second prong: The nature of the copyrighted work: The work is highly creative. I’ll agree that this prong strongly disfavors fair use. (I wouldn’t normally say “strongly,” but I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt.)
Third prong: Amount and substantiality of the portion used: Almost the entire work is used, but this is necessary for purposes such as parody. In cases such as this, the prong favors fair use but is given minimal weight.
Fourth prong: Market effect: The use does not create a substitute work in the same market or any legally cognizable potential market. It might harm the market for the original through criticism of it, but that is not considered harm under this prong. (Only market substitution counts; criticism is one of the very purposes of fair use.) There being no legally cognizable market harm, this factor favors fair use. (I would say “strongly favors,” but I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, given that the use is still a political cartoon. In the final analysis, exactly how strongly this factor favors fair use doesn’t matter, because you’ve already lost.)
This is a balancing test, so we weight all four prongs and see which side weighs more heavily. We have one prong strongly in favor, one somewhat in favor, and one weakly in favor. Opposing that we have one prong strongly against. The overall balance is unambiguously in favor of fair use even though I fudged the weighting of two factors to make them more against it.
If you have an alternate legal analysis, please explain.
Yes, actually, it is fair use. Fair use enables the use of existing material for parody, which is clearly what the intent of the text substitution was for. I would highly recommend reading Marcia Wilbur’s book DMCA (included in the website link) for a thorough description as to what is, and is not, fair use.
Also for the record? The FCC does not administrate copyright law. That’s the domain of the courts and (if the violation is criminal – as with Chinese bootlegs) the FBI.
The cartoonist does not understand how the three branches of government work.
This cartoonist does not understand net neutrality.
Wow… “Bok” ? Do you understand how bandwidth management works and what ISPs are attempting to do with it? Apparently not… you’re too busy living out red scare daydreams from your youth in the 1960s.
Actually I do, John. Under the Telecommunications Act of 1932 the government, rather than the market, will ration bandwidth. I’ve got 30 years on you.
So, 30 years of assuming how things work instead of doing actual research. It’s extremely clear you don’t have a clue of how internet telecommunications work, how the ISPs were trying to screw everyone by utilizing their monopolies, and how the move to Title II prevents the ISPs from hurting us.
Unless you’re in favor of monopolies and these corporations taking advantage of Americans, which, in review of your comments and political views, seems more likely the case than anything else.
You do realize you are making an argument for a Logan’s Run society, don’t you?
Ha ha had to look that up. Could be the net neutrality plan I’m said not to understand. The FCC killing off enough people to keep bandwidth and downloaders in equilibrium 😉
No, it’s the culling of the old, slow, out-of-touch, members of society that hold it back which was the point of a society where no one lives past 30.
Age does not make one wiser. I’ve met plenty of stupid older people who know little to nothing about the work I do. =)
This age business seems to have come from a comment someone made in the thread that I was stuck in the 60’s. I pointed out that he was advocating a remedy formulated in the 30’s – the telecommunications act. Therefore I had 30 years on him. It had nothing to do with actual age. Kinda like parody.
How well do you really know the Telecommunications Act of 1932 when it was actually the Telecommunications Act of 1934?
That’s not how this works at all. Do you even take yourself seriously?
No, I don’t take myself seriously. My fear is you do.
I also fear that anyone might take you seriously, Chip.
Cool. Then you and I are agreed you would be better off drawing cartoons about, oh, let’s say, obese felines who love baked pasta dishes for the funnies pages rather than editorial cartoons for the op-ed pages, which are supposedly based on something resembling fact.
You have no idea how Net Neutrality works.
Congratulations on becoming an Internet laughingstock.
Why should I be held to a higher standard? You have no idea how it works either. Our crony capitalist rulers are going protect the internet from corporations? That’s a laughingstock.
When you say:
“Why should I be held to a higher standard? You have no idea how it works either. Our crony capitalist rulers are going protect the internet from corporations?”
It sounds like:
“Why should I be expected to understand the things I make cartoons about when some of my readers might not understand them either?”
Do you realise that this is essentially the argument you just tried to make?
Why should you be held to a ‘higher standard’? I’d say a basic understanding of the topic of your cartoons is a pretty *low* standard, actually. A *high* standard would be, on top of being basicaly correct, actually being intelligent and funny, too. Clearly since you do not meet the first standard, you fail, too, to meet the others. With the possible unintended exception of the latter.
Also, for the record, net neutrality is pretty easy to understand. You say ‘don’t fix what isn’t broken’, but that’s *exactly the point*. Net neutrality is to *prevent changes*.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Mr. Vasylenko. “Net neutrality is to prevent changes”.
Ever since Al Gore calved the internet it has been been a dynamic engine of growth. I’d hate to see that change.
You fucking retard still don’t get that the FCC is only preventing one very *negative* change. There’s nothing positive in greedy companies that demonstrably treat their customers like shit and apparently are paying garbage “cartoonists” to be a shitty shills having control over what content gets prefered treatment (like you are somehow conversely and wrongly presenting the FCC trying to do) – That hinders *positive* and competitive change.
Go count the money they shoved up your sellout ass some more.
Mr. Horst F., could you please direct me to where could receive some of the Fucking Retard Shill Payments? I’m tapped out with the Global Warming Denier Fund.
Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet.
As for the fact that you don’t get paid to shill for the broadband providers, I believe you. I would never belittle an honorable and professional whore by confusing him with a slut.
Because it’s you job, Chip.
This cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works.
I know exactly how it works. It is my job, and has been for 20 years as a systems programmer. You on the other hand have only what you have been told. Net neutrality is what has made your blog be able to survive with all the other outlets. What would happen for example if all the ISPs decided to charge you for us to see your blog? How would that work with the modern internet? How would that affect large and small players?
So if you are against the crony capitalist rulers, surely you are then for overturning Citizens United, right?
Why would that be?
For the record, there are crony capitalists in BOTH parties and they ALL are bad, but you seem to think that whenever someone points out one in the GOP, you can just wave your hand and say “These aren’t the crony capitalists you are looking for.” That may work with uniformed drinkers of the Tea Party Kool-aid that are too lazy to look shit up and see anything past the rhetoric fed to them on talk radio and Fox News, but that doesn’t work with everyone else.
I’m wondering where you got the notion I wave off Republican cronies. You’re right crony capitalists are in both parties, They’re equally attracted by the government honey pot. Both parties are bad. Democrats have the edge because they stand for more government and a bigger honey pot. The Republican establishment doesn’t stand for much of anything.
Also, knock off the name calling and cheap assumptions if you want to keep commenting here.
I just looked through all of my comments and the only name I referred to you by is “the cartoonist”. Are you really going to take offense to that? If so I apologize.
And I didn’t say you “wave off Republican cronies” (I guess I should have figured I would have had to explain any pop culture reference I used but I don’t have the patience or the energy to explain that.) I meant you pretend like only Democrat cronies exist, painting the government as a Democrat possessed evil boogeyman bent on doing their bidding at the expense of everyone else.
The Constitution has a Commerce Clause FOR A VERY GOOD REASON. The Sherman Act was passed FOR A VERY GOOD REASON as well. Government regulation is often necessary. Corporate entities can become very bad actors without it.
Not the droids/cronys you’re looking for is pretty funny. I admit I had to look it up.
The only way to stop crony capitalism is to take the money out of politics. Citizen’s United did the EXACT OPPOSITE of that – it opened the flood gates by accepting the argument that corporations had a first amendment right to free speech just like people do – by digging up a handful of cases from 1800s where the courts decided that fourteenth amendment protections applied to corporations too so first amendment protections must as well. And then based on that they argued that donating money constituted protected speech that Congress could not make a law to limit effectively making laws meant to limit campaign donations by corporate entities a first amendment violation. Corporate cronyism is now a first amendment protected activity thanks to SCOTUS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
And for the record, I purposely try to cheap name calling. It never helps an argument and I’m pretty sure I didn’t engage in it here. If I did, inadvertently, I apologize.
Citizen’s United is tricky. As I recall one of the justices asked to the effect if corporations don’t have speech rights does that mean books can be censored? The government lawyer said yes.
On the other had commercial speech is treated differently than other speech.
McCain Feingold limited campaign donations and denied they are a form of speech. I limited advocacy speech near elections and made cutouts for newspapers which usually are corporations. To me speech is speech especially when it’s about politics. That’s why we have a first amendment. BTW McCain is one of those pesky establishment republicans.
As for money in politics, I think it’s more a symptom of the fact that cronyism stems from the money available from government. Politics is the means of getting to to the money and therefore elections are worth a lot of money.
Reducing the government honeypot is probably a pipe dream but I still prefer to limit government where possible.
Thanks for you last comment. I agree you probably didn’t engage in name calling. No apology needed.
Corporate cronyism works both ways. (That’s why there’s a revolving door.) But it’s enabled by what is effectively legalized bribery of public officials. Corporations contribute large sums of money to candidates that do their bidding, whether it’s enacting legislation they like, blocking legislation they don’t like or granting government contracts to themselves, it all stems from privileged access and representation due to the the big money spent by the corporations which spend it on both parties to ensure that regardless of who wins the elections, the corporation always wins.
er – *try to avoid cheap name calling
Please, don’t take offense to this because I really not trying to be mean here. Dude, you REALLY need to get out and look around more – ESPECIALLY in your line of work. I can understand not getting the Logan’s Run reference. That wasn’t THAT big and was a good while back. A lot of people have forgotten about that and it’s understandable that many have never heard of it. But such and iconic STAR WARS reference? WTF? Glad you actually looked it up though. Maybe there’s hope for you yet. 🙂
What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? – I’m good at Godfather references.
It’s funny because the cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works.
Please see – stop steeling my stuff and come up with something original. Also please click some ads on your way out. Thank you, Bokbluster management.
The cartoonist has no idea how fair use works.
Suggest you visit popehat for an explanation as to why these are not stealing but would classify as fair use. Besides those of us who work in this field professionally think you do not know what you are talking about.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150308/15581330254/cartoonist-has-no-idea-how-fair-use-works.shtml
So if I’m with Comcast and they do a deal with another online cartoonist and decide to slow down or block your site so I can’t read it will your income suffer? Hmmm, maybe it would be good to have a law that says ISPs can’t do that and have to treat every website equally. That would be a great idea! We could call it Net Equality! No, Net Impartiality! No, Net Fairness! No, Net…. Little help here guys…?
“Your download will begin when the FCC says it will”
That’s a lie. The FCC is not controlling anything about when a download will begin or not begin. What net neutrality does is make it so your internet provider has to treat all content equally. If you download a file or watch something on Youtube or post a comment on a stupid cartoon, it’s all data and it doesn’t matter what kind of traffic it is. The ISP has to treat it equally.
In other words, net neutrality is the exact opposite of what the cartoon depicts.
What you’re doing is engaging in is a propaganda war to sway those who know nothing on to the wrong side of the debate in order to make the world a little bit worse for everyone else.
If you don’t realize that you’re lying to everyone, then you’re an idiot. If you know you’re lying and doing it anyway, then you’re an evil asshole.
Either way, you’re lying to people.
This sums it up perfectly. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150308/15581330254/cartoonist-has-no-idea-how-fair-use-works.shtml
Damn. Beat me to it.
I’ll just leave this here…
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150308/15581330254/cartoonist-has-no-idea-how-fair-use-works.shtml
Chip, allow me to introduce you to Ms. Streisand.
Abusing the DMCA to file fraudulent claims to silence criticism and parody is underhanded, Chip. Also the cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works.
But 512(f) has no teeth.
The cartoonist doesn’t know how net neutrality works.
ITT, myopic cartoonist uses ignorance as a cudgel.
The cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works.
The cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works.
I tend to agree with you that it was unfair (unlawful? IANAL) to leave your sig, name and copyright as is, thus leading to possible confusion as to authorship.
I’m curious, Mr Bok. Would you have “let it slide” if it was clear that you were NOT the author of the parody?
Yes, of course. If my original work had been left in tact I would have no problem with someone marking it up – as Mr. Berger says happened frequently with newspaper cartoons – for parody. The wittier the better but if the best you can come up with is “the cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works”, so be it.
My problem, as Mr. Berger pointed out, is the parody destroyed my intellectual property and misrepresented my work as the parody. “Replacing his words with someone else’s isn’t just criticism, it supplants and therefore silences his speech”
I don’t think you have any idea what “silencing” means. Your cartoon does not magically cease to exist in the universe because someone else has made an edit of it. In addition, appealing to free speech means you don’t understand the first amendment, as the person creating the parody is not the United States government.
The cartoonist has no idea how the 1st amendment works.
Once again you show you dont know what you are talking about. The people placing “the cartoonist….” is the parody. No one is claiming your cartoon is a parody.
“My problem, as Mr. Berger pointed out, is the parody destroyed my intellectual property and misrepresented my work as the parody. ‘Replacing his words with someone else’s isn’t just criticism, it supplants and therefore silences his speech.'”
Yeah, um, you’re referring to the IP law principle of whether or not a “reasonable person” would be confused. That has nothing to do with copyright law, dude. Absolutely NOTHING. That’s trademark law you’re thinking of. For instance, if Blockbuster, Inc. were suing you for a trademark violation for the name of your blog, then the court would be asked to decide whether or not a “reasonable person” would confuse “Bokbluster” for something related to “Blockbuster.” Copyright law? Nope. Never gonna come up. Sorry.
The ONLY way in which it would factor into a copyright case would be if it’s your contention that the re-captioned cartoon doesn’t qualify as a parody. You’ve already admitted it does, so sorry, Charlie. But assuming you hadn’t (which, I repeat, you have, and that would be addressed in court), the question would then be whether or not the judge would decide that a reasonable person would assume you were commenting on an issue on which, by your own admission, you are woefully under-educated.
If you think a judge would decide that… man, that’s kind of a sign this line of work might not be for you.
“I tend to agree with you that it was unfair (unlawful? IANAL) to leave your sig, name and copyright as is, thus leading to possible confusion as to authorship.
“I’m curious, Mr Bok. Would you have ‘let it slide’ if it was clear that you were NOT the author of the parody?”
Nope, it’s not unlawful. The question of whether a “reasonable person” would be confused only matters in trademark law, not copyright law. If it were unclear the reworking was a parody (which now you – as well as Mr. Bok) have acknowledged it is, THEN it might be a question, but otherwise, no.
As for your question – whether a disclaimer would have helped – disclaimers are mostly irrelevant in copyright law. I say “mostly” because if the specific case is 50/50, the presence of a disclaimer MIGHT be used as a sort of tiebreaker. But if the issue is a clear violation of copyright law (this isn’t), no disclaimer will save it, and if the issue is clear fair use (this is), no disclaimer is necessary.
Mr. Bok,
In arguing against the fair use of your cartoon, you seem to be making more of a libel argument than one based in copyright law. From what I can tell, you are not upset that the alteration to your cartoon would compete with or lessen the value of your art, but that by leaving your signature on the cartoon the parody artist is in fact representing that you are the author of the adulterated cartoon. To me, the libel argument is a bit stronger and might evoke more sympathy from the web community who regularly see corporate interests use IP law as a bludgeon against creative expression.
Better claim would be a violation of the Lanham Act §43 due to confusion of source, since they left the signature tag on the parody cartoons, and Mr. Bok seems to be more incensed about the use of his name.
There’s a fundamental jurisdictional problem with making that argument, though. 😀
But wouldn’t that require that the “infringement” be a commercial use?
Bingo! 🙂
The cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works.
*gets out the popcorn*
Oh man, this is starting to get good.
JET FUEL CANT MELT STEEL BEAMS
Jet fuel cant melt steel beams debra
He tells us to click on ads which is against Google Adsense TOS. This cartoonist doesn’t know how Adsense works, either.
Obviously, the cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works.
This cartoonist does not know how Net Neutrality works.
He also does not know how the Streisand Effect works.
He also does not know how fair use works.
This cartoonist does not know how ANYTHING works.
The cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works.
The cartoonist apparently learned about the Internet for Ted Stevens.
er – *from
Not sure what you mean by this either. Ted Stevens was falsely prosecuted and lost his seat in the US Senate. He lost his seat which was the deciding vote for Obamacare. The court decision was overruled after his death and he was exonerated.
Caption should have been…
Your internet will download when the FCC says so.
That would have been funnier.
I’m back. I see you’ve dragged the falsely prosecuted Ted Stevens into this. Not sure why but I’m sure I’ll hear about it.
You keep using that word “prosecuted”. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Was the word you were actually looking for “PERSECUTED”?
I wasn’t aware of Ted Stevens ever being charged with a crime.
Does the cartoonist also have a difficult time with the English language?
As for why I referenced him here, go back and re-read my previous comment. Which of the words are you having difficulty with?
I was not aware of that. Prosecutorial misconduct is also a big problem – especially with the current DOJ. The truth is probably that he deserved to be indicted and convicted but also deserved to have the conviction overturned due to the way the DOJ handled the case. Still, as you and I both have explained, none of that is relevant to this conversation.
Oop. I meant the 2008 election, was when Stevens lost to Begich, not the 2012. It would actually have been the prior DOJ who prosecuted Stevens, and I don’t recall if it was a federal case or not. Regardless, Stevens got a raw deal, but the reference are clearly to his “series of tubes” speech, which everybody except the guy who – I repeat – IS PUBLISHED IN NEWSPAPERS seems to be aware of.
Still I see irony in the fact that he complains about crony capitalists in government then defends Stevens. The repairs to his home, wasn’t the only time his ethics were called into question.
It would have been a neat trick for him to run in the 2012 election considering that he died in 2010. :p
As do I, I apologize for the persecuted vs. prosecuted comment. I was not aware of that and before I saw Tony’s comment about it I thought maybe I should look that up to see if he ever was prosecuted for anything. so I did. that still has nothing to do with the Internet or net neutrality. Now, I will wait while the cartoonist, looks up “series of tubes”.
jet fuel can’t melt steel beams
As someone from the UK, where we have net neutrality and a couple of hundred ISP to choose from I can state that you comments about “Obama taking over the internet” and your understanding of what net neutrality actually is are utterly wrong. You reaction to someone pointing out that you clearly don’t understand net neutrality just shows you don’t understand Fair Use either.
Net Neutrality isn’t the FCC “taking over” the internet. It is the exact same policy that has applied to the USPS and other common carriers for decades. It is what forbids FedEx looking at your package and saying “That’s from Amazon so we’re going to charge you more”. Please actually research an issue from a source other than Fox News before trying to comment on it with your cartoons.
From what I can see he is the only one opening his mouth to try to defend this so the brunt of it is rightfully directed at him.
Since I don’t think anyone has linked it yet, here John Oliver explains why net neutrality is a very good thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU
There are very substantial arguments for net neutrality. I haven’t heard any substantial arguments against it; I mostly just hear about people whining about “government regulating the internet” as if that were an inherently bad thing. It’s only a bad thing if it has bad consequences. So what are they?